TNI not seriously enforce human rights regulation for their soldiers

Three Indonesian soldiers behind the videotaped torture of two men in the country's restive Papua Province were jailed for less than a year by a military court on Monday, angering human rights activists who have denounced the legal proceedings as a farce. 

The soldiers were sentenced to between 8 and 10 months for disobeying orders - rather than the more serious charge of torture - in the May 2010 abuse of the villagers, Tunaliwor Kiwo and Telangga Gire, in the province's remote central highlands, a site of sporadic fighting between separatist rebels and Jakarta. 

A cellphone video about 10 minutes long was posted online last year showing soldiers at a military post kicking and suffocating Mr. Kiwo and burning his penis with a smoldering stick. The video also shows soldiers holding a knife to the face of Mr. Gire. Mr. Kiwo said he was further tortured over a period of three days. 

The release of the video outraged activists and residents in the province and prompted an uncharacteristic admission of wrongdoing by the military, which has long been accused of brutality in Papua. 

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia pledged a full investigation in the lead-up to a visit by President Barack Obama last November. The United States had ended last July a more than decade-long ban on training for Kopassus, an elite Special Forces unit. 

But as the case progressed, activists accused the government and the military of a litany of delays and obfuscation. The case was switched to the military justice system from the civilian authorities. 

The resulting process has been a "joke," said Elaine Pearson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York. 

"This was really an important test case for the Indonesian government, and they've really failed to show that they're serious about addressing human rights violations," Ms. Pearson said. 

"The government has basically dragged its feet all the way along through this process and reluctantly done the bare minimum to make the problem go away." 

Activists including Human Rights Watch initially accused the military of responding to the outcry over the torture video by conducting a bait-and-switch, trying some soldiers over another video depicting a separate incident of less serious abuse. Four soldiers were jailed for between five and seven months over the incident. 

The pursuit of insubordination charges, rather than those of torture, in the second trial and the focus on a small number of low-level perpetrators appears to be aimed at denying the existence of widespread abuses in Papua, Ms. Pearson said. 

Mr. Yudhoyono had already dismayed rights advocates with his remarks to military and police personnel last week in which he urged punishment for the perpetrators of abuse but characterized the Papua case as "small scale." 

Local and international rights groups have long accused the Indonesian police and military of human rights violations in Papua despite Indonesia's overall transition to democracy after the 1998 ouster of the dictator Suharto. 

The resource-rich and ethnically distinct half island was incorporated into Indonesia in the 1960s in a U.N.-backed vote of selected tribal leaders widely seen as a sham. 

A spokesman for the military command in Papua, Lt. Col. Harry Priyatna, said the case was not aimed at playing down rights violations in the province. He said the military decided against pursuing torture charges because the standard of evidence required was too high. 

"If they had been prosecuted for torture, then that requires complete evidence," Colonel Priyatna said. "If we couldn't come up with the evidence at the hearings, then our worry is they could have been freed." 

It was still uncertain whether the three soldiers would be reinstated at the end of their sentences, he added. 

"If they can't be rehabilitated, then the rule is that they will be fired," he said. "But if they can be rehabilitated, things will probably be considered differently. "